Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Photo gallery: FSU research cruise at Deepwater Horizon oil spill site

Dr. Oscar Garcia-Pineda of Florida State University has been out in the Gulf this week on the research vessel Brooks McCall. He’s collecting samples and observations of the BP oil slick, and will compare results with simultaneous acquisitions of aerial remote sensing overflights being conducted by NASA. We at SkyTruth are also collecting near-simultaneous satellite […]

Climate refugees in Syria driven to cities by severe drought

  Damascus (AFP) June 22, 2010 – A severe four-year drought is devastating Syria’s rural communities, forcing them to abandon the country’s traditional breadbasket in the northeast for cities in search of employment. Earlier this month, the World Food Programme started delivering food aid to nearly 200,000 people in the provinces of Al-Hasakeh, Al-Raqqa and […]

Amid historic drought, Red Cross buys starving cattle to feed Malians — ‘Dead animals litter the ground’

  Toya, Mali (AFP) June 22, 2010 – In single file, hundreds of residents of Toya wait patiently for meat distributed by the Red Cross who bought up thousands of starving animals to feed Mali’s drought-stricken population. With containers in hand they await the meat from four cows slaughtered in the village in the north-west […]

Drought adds to Syria woes of poverty and unemployment

By MICHAEL JANSEN in Damascus SYRIA IS sweltering in an unseasonable heatwave which Damascenes are blaming on climate change. “We have to fight global warming now, as well as so many other battles,” asserted Zuhair, an academic. Battle was joined in 2007 when the rains failed and 40,000 farm families in the country’s northeastern breadbasket […]

Graph of the Day: Surface Ocean pCO2 and pH at the Atmospheric Mauna Loa Observatory, 1988–2008

Time series of (top) atmospheric CO2 and surface ocean pCO2 and (bottom) surface ocean pH at the atmospheric Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO) on the island of Hawai‘i and Station ALOHA in the subtropical North Pacific north of Hawai‘i, 1988–2008. Doney, 2010, adapted from Dore et al, 2009. Ocean acidification is documented clearly from ocean time-series […]

Giant green algae bloom heads towards China

Beijing (AFP) June 22, 2010 – A massive floating expanse of green algae is heading towards China’s east coast, potentially threatening wildlife and the region’s tourist industry, state media reported on Tuesday. The algae bloom covered 200 square kilometres (80 square miles) and was about 13 kilometres (eight miles) offshore and floating towards the coastal […]

Photo gallery: Historic drought in southwest China and the Mekong basin

A solitary man and an ox cart travel across an area where locals went fishing less than a year ago in Damoguzhen County, Yunnan. ‘The old folk say it has never dried up in their lifetimes.’ Photograph: Jonathan Watts / Guardian Drought in south-west China and the Mekong basin Technorati Tags: drought,freshwater depletion,desertification,agriculture,China,global warming,climate change

Massive Pensacola Beach cleanup effort proves futile – Oil buried under inches of sand

By Travis Griggs • tgriggs@pnj.com • June 25, 2010 Despite intensive efforts by more than 1,100 workers and heavy equipment to clean thick tar from Pensacola Beach overnight Wednesday, massive sheets of oil remained buried in the sand. An 8-mile stretch of Pensacola Beach that was covered with gooey oil Wednesday appeared to be clean […]

Polar oceans key to temperature in the tropics

Newcastle, UK (SPX) Jun 23, 2010 – Scientists have found that the ocean temperature at the earth’s polar extremes has a significant impact thousands of miles away at the equator. Newcastle University’s Dr Erin McClymont is part of an international team of researchers who have published research in Science, demonstrating a close link between the […]

Gulf residents cope with unknown impacts of oil spill

By Janet Marcel | Bayou CatholicSubmitted on June 23, 2010 SCHRIEVER, LA. — Fishing, swimming and interacting at all with the water off the coast of Louisiana is off-limits to residents, and their livelihoods and quality of life are suffering, said the pastor of Our Lady of the Isle Parish in Grand Isle. “They can’t […]

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